Voodootown

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Ash

The second floor hallway was crowded before morning homeroom, but Ash just stood in place, let the other students brush past.  He wasn't sure how, but he knew James would be coming this way soon, and he had something to show him.

Eun Kyung walked by, pointed at his face.  "Nice bruises."  But she smiled and patted his shoulder as she passed him.  A few steps behind her was Shaunice.  She stopped when she saw Ash.

He smiled at her.  Smiling didn't hurt too much.  "Remember any dreams..."

But she cut him off with a shake of her head.  "No.  Don't talk to me." 

Ash knew it would hurt to frown at her, and stopped himself.  He started to turn away, but remembered something about Shaunice, or maybe about her friend.  It had something to do with UFOs.  Then, he saw an image of the poster from the X-Files.  "I want to believe," he said.

She took a step back from him and Ash watched her eyes flick all over, but she didn't make a sound.  It looked like she was trying to come up with an answer to a test she hadn't studied for.  Then, she shook her head.  "No."  She hurried past him and he watched her disappear into the crowd of students before he turned back to the stairs.  This was where James had bumped into him yesterday after school.

He saw a head of close cropped, messy blonde hair, inches taller than the other students, coming up the stairs and knew it was James.  The hair was still wet and James scratched at it as if there was something crawling in it.  The boy stopped and frowned when he came up to where Ash was waiting for him.

Ash smiled back at the bigger boy and took off his jacket.  Beneath it was the shirt he had bought when he visited the science museum six months ago.  The front of it was covered with drawings of insects.

The two stood there and Ash began to feel like it was some kind of a show down from an old western movie.  Then, with a high pitched bleat, James spun around and ran back down the stairs past Janey and Curtis.

Janey froze in place when she looked at Ash, a hand over her mouth.  "Oh, God.  What happened?  Are you all right?"

Ash nodded.  "Yeah.  I really am now."

"What was that about?" Curtis asked.  He looked down the stairs, then to Ash's shirt.

"Huh," Ash said.  "I really don't know."  He wasn't exactly sure why he had picked this shirt, nor why he had really wanted to show it to James, but he felt like he had been going along with some kind of plan. 

The bell rang and students ran for their rooms.  Janey and Curtis gave him a wave as they hurried off.  Ash adjusted his backpack on his shoulders, turned and nearly ran into another student.  It was an older boy, a senior that he didn't really know.  The boy stared straight ahead, blinking only occasionally.

"Hey.  Are you okay?" Ash asked.

There was no reply.

He waved his hand in front of the boy's face and snapped his fingers.  The senior blinked his eyes more purposefully and looked down at Ash.  "Is it time to go home?"

Ash looked up at the boy, then around the empty hallway.  "Uh, yeah.  School's out.  Time to go home."  The boy nodded and walked toward the stairs, even though it was obviously morning and school was just starting.  Ash saw that the boy's movements were jerky and awkward, almost like sleepwalking.  He wondered if the boy hadn't really woken up yet.

When Ash turned back to his class, he saw that there were two others standing in the hall, just like the senior had been.  There was something about this that he felt he should know, but he couldn't bring up a clear memory.

All he could pull up from his friend, Blink, was that something was changing.  Something was wrong and they were all in danger.